Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/363

Penton with Woodbine (afterwards Sir Woodbine) Parish [q. v.], he surveyed a large portion of the Bolivian Andes which had rarely been visited by Europeans. He took extensive observations on the snow-lines and on the heights of the mountains, the majority of which are either extinct volcanos or volcanos of exhausted activity. Gualtieri was found to be 22,000 feet high, Arequipa 18,300 feet, Chirquibamba 21,000 feet, Illimani 21,300 feet, and Sorata 24,800 feet. He was the first to measure these mountains, and succeeding explorers have been of opinion that he somewhat exaggerated their altitudes. The mean elevation of the perpetual snow-line was 16,990 feet, and the elevation of the whole range is so great that the mean height of the practicable passes through them exceeds 14,650 feet. During his journey he found fossils of Silurian age at a height of 17,000 feet, and of carboniferous limestone at 14,000 feet above the sea. Pentland also visited the mountain lake of Titicaca. He saw that its outlet was the river Desaguadero, whereas all maps up to that period had represented the river as running into the lake. In 1838 he made a tour in the southern province of ancient Peru, visiting Cusco, the capital, and the many interesting localities around that city (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1835 v. 70–89, with two maps, 1838 viii. 427, and Proceedings, 9 March 1874, pp. 215–16;, Kosmos, Sabine's edit. 1846–58, i. 362, vol. iv. pt. i. p. lxxxv).

From 1845 he made Rome his winter residence. He was so well acquainted with the topography and antiquities of the city that he was selected to act as guide to the Prince of Wales on the two occasions of his visiting Rome. He edited for John Murray ‘A Handbook of Rome and its Environs. Ninth edition, carefully revised on the spot,’ 1860; also the tenth and eleventh editions of 1871 and 1872; ‘A Handbook for Travellers in Southern Italy,’ sixth edition, 1868, and ‘A Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy,’ eleventh edition, 1869. He aided James Fergusson (1808–1886) [q. v.] in his ‘Sketches of the Antiquities of Cusco,’ and Mrs. Somerville with information on the geology of South America for her ‘Physical Geography,’ 1848. He died at 3 Motcomb Street, London, on 12 July 1873, and was buried in Brompton cemetery.

[Foreign Office List, July 1873, p. 154, January 1874, p. 203; Athenæum, 6 Sept. 1873, p. 309.] 

PENTON, STEPHEN (1639–1706), divine, son of Stephen Penton, was born at Winchester and baptised at St. John's Church on 9 April 1639. He was admitted as scholar of Winchester College in 1653 (, Winchester Scholars, p. 187), and matriculated from New College, Oxford, on 28 June 1659, becoming probationary fellow in that year, and remaining a full fellow from 1661 to 1672. He graduated B.A. 7 May 1663, and M.A. 17 Jan. 1666–7. For some time he remained at Oxford; but from 1670 to 1676 he held the rectory of Tingewick, near Buckingham, a living in the gift of his college (, Buckinghamshire, iii. 124), and so early as 1671 he served as chaplain to the Earl of Ailesbury. On 15 Feb. 1675–6 he was appointed principal of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, by the provost and fellows of Queen's College, subject to the condition that he should resign Tingewick, and that his college should appoint thereto a fellow of Queen's College. While principal he built the chapel, which was consecrated 7 April 1682, and the adjoining library (cf., History of the Oxford Colleges, ed. Gutch, p. 669, and , Collections, Oxford Hist. Soc., ii. 321–3).

Penton resigned the principalship for his health's sake on 15 March 1683–4, and on leaving gave the hall some silver plate (ib. i. 263). From 1684 to 1693 he was rector of Glympton, and was also lecturer in the neighbouring church at Churchill. On the nomination of Lord Ailesbury he was instituted, on 27 Sept. 1693, to the rectory of Wath-by-Ripon, and he was collated on 28 May 1701 to the third prebendal stall at Ripon, holding both preferments until his death. In a sermon which he preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, on 23 Sept. 1705, he pronounced, according to Hearne, a great encomium on the Duke of Marlborough (Collections, ed. Doble, i. 47–8). He died on 18 Oct. 1706, and was buried on 20 Oct. in the chancel of Wath church, where a quaint inscription on a brass plate commemorates him. The epitaph is printed in Whitaker's ‘Richmondshire’ (ii. 187). His will, dated 8 Oct. 1706, with a codicil dated 12 Oct., appears in the ‘Memorials of Ripon Church.’ He left the bulk of his estate for the benefit of the poor of the parish. Many books were given by him to the Bodleian Library in 1702 (, Annals, 2nd edit. p. 172).

Wood, in the ‘Athenæ Oxonienses,’ describes Penton as possessing ‘a rambling head;’ but Hearne, in the ‘Notæ et Spicilegium’ appended to his edition of William of Newburgh (iii. 782–3), characterises him as ‘an ingenious honest man, a good scholar, a quaint preacher, of a most facetious temper, of extraordinary good nature … a despiser of money and preferments’ (cf.